Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Alyona Mink interviewed journalist Glenn Greenwald on the NSA's surveillance of Wikileaks and its supporters, and the U.K. High Court decision that the detention of his partner David Miranda was justified.

TransCanada's laughable claim that its Keystone XL pipeline will be the safest ever built ignores two glaring facts: 1) its last pipeline through Nebraska, Keystone 1, leaked 12-14 times in its FIRST year of operation, and 2) TransCanada isn't planning to use state-of-the-art leak detection technology to safeguard Nebraska's priceless Ogallala Aquifer.
Oh, one more thing: the robot "pigs" used by TransCanada to inspect pipe for leakage use software that whistleblowers claim are rigged to looser standards than required, allegedly in order to save TransCanada money in pipe replacement, by not flagging suspected defects as aggressively as it could.

Today's ruling (linked to below, in its entirety) by Lancaster District Court Judge Stephanie Stacy was a huge setback for TransCanada's push for eminent domain seizures of farms and ranches of Nebraska landowners who refused to grant the oil giant permission to build an extension of its leaky Keystone One pipeline across Nebraska land which feeds the pristine Ogallala Aquifer, biggest in North America, and indispensible to Nebraska's $20 billion ag industry.Randy Thompson, a Republican Nebraska rancher who used to support the very GOP politicians who subsequently enabled the eminent domain seizure of his land by a foreign oil company, and who has become the poster boy for BoldNebraska's efforts to fight the TransCanada pipeline, was interviewed on As It Happens,the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's national newscast during its coverage of today's Nebraska ruling against TransCanada at the 2:22 mark here.

OMAHA, Neb. – February 19,
2014 – The Nebraska Legislature’s 2012 L.B.1161 allowing TransCanada
Keystone XL Pipeline Co. to proceed with construction across Nebraska
was declared unconstitutional and void. The ruling came from
Lancaster County District Court Judge Stephanie Stacy, today. The Court
ruled for three Nebraska landowners who challenge the law. The
ruling includes a permanent injunction preventing Gov. Dave Heineman,
and the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality from taking any
further action to authorize or advance the pipeline under the
unconstitutional law.

Judge Stacy concluded that LB 1161
unconstitutionally confers upon the Governor of Nebraska authority to
approve a crude oil pipeline route, and to authorize the crude oil
pipeline company to exercise the power of eminent domain against
Nebraska landowners. Siding with three landowner plaintiffs, the
District Court concluded that under Nebraska’s State Constitution,
exclusive regulatory control over pipeline companies like TransCanada
Keystone XL must be exercised by the Nebraska Public Service Commission,
and cannot be given to the Governor.

The Court declared LB 1161,
unconstitutional and void. Judge Stacy also concluded that action by
Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman purporting to approve TransCanada’s route
and to empower the pipeline company to take land from Nebraska property
owners is null and void. The court’s action effectively rescinds
Gov. Heineman’s notification to Pres. Barack Obama that Nebraska legal
procedures had been satisfied. Now, it is back to the drawing board for
Gov. Heineman and the Legislature.

Dave Domina, the lawyer who handled the
case for the landowners summarized the Ruling: “Under the Court’s
ruling, TransCanada has no approved route in Nebraska. TransCanada is
not authorized to condemn the property against Nebraska landowners. The
pipeline project is at standstill in this State.” The Court’s extensive,
50-page opinion is accompanied by 248 footnotes. The opinion dissects
LB1161 on state constitutional grounds. The decision turns largely
on the pipeline’s status as a “common carrier”. Common carriers are
regulated by the Public Service Commission under the Nebraska
Constitution.

Dave Domina noted that “this case is not
about the merits of any pipeline in particular. This is a landowner
rights case involving whether a specific statute was invalid under the
Nebraska State Constitution.” Domina’s clients contend the law was, and
is, unconstitutional and void.

The District Court agreed.

Domina stressed, “This is not a commentary
on the pipeline project. That subject belongs to the President of the
United States exclusively. This ruling means that, in Nebraska, the
Governor’s office has no role to play, and all state law decisions must
be made by the Public Service Commission.”
A copy of the Court’s Opinion is found HERE (and embedded below): http://www.dominalaw.com/documents/LB-1161-Court-Order-Feb-19-2014.pdf

Bizzle’s lyrics are a textbook case of homophobic narcissism. He
suggests same-sex desire is a “syndrome” and a “defect,” and he compares
it to pedophilia, retardation, and extramarital sex (a rich accusation,
since Bizzle opposes allowing gay sex to ever occur within a marriage).
But since gayness doesn’t harm or disable anyone, viewing it as a
syndrome really means this: Anyone who doesn’t like what I like is
abnormal and defective; being just like me is the only acceptable model.

The vitriolic rant Bizzle set to Macklemore's song is a toxic hate dump ended by the preposterous protestation that he loves the folks he just cheaply slandered. Among the low points:

...But, see your hypocrisy is something I could paint vividlySaying, it's the way you was born, and I'm sure thatYou lust just like I do just in a different formBut I'm married so if I give into mine, I'm a cheaterIf you give into yours, you just fight to make it legal ...You would compare your sexual habits to my skin (What?!?)Calling it the new black ...So, quit comparing the two. It ain't the same fightYou can play straight. We can never play whiteUsing black people as pawns for yo' agenda ...It angers you, if I compare you to a pedophileCuz' he sick, right?And you're better how? ...And that rainbow you using as a gay pride symbol (you stole that)It represents a covenant with God if you didn't knowCheck Genesis 9:13 for the info ...The problem is if you don't call it sin, thenYou walk as if there's nothing to repent for ...To describe someone who was born a little differently than we areI guess down syndrome really isn't a thing ya'llWhat do we call yo' syndrome?Oh, that term is offensive now when it hits home?So, what gives you the right to call the way he was born a defect?I call yours a defect, you feel it's disrespectYou don't believe in God?Hey, the universe says if we all gayWe either die off or have to do it God's way ...God is worth itGod bless youNo hate about itI love you

Because we at AKSARBENT have never understood Fallon's appeal, we continue to predict he will fall flat on his face, or at least lose the Tonight Show ratings edge that Leno mostly maintained. To us Fallon has always seemed an impersonator without a core who constantly grovels to his audience, imploring it to please like him.

Eric Leushen during his playing days at Nebraska.
Photo: University of Nebraska, Lincoln

World-Herald columnist Matthew Hansen has written a remarkable account of how University of Nebraska kicker Eric Leushen came out to his team. (Spoiler: in these situations, it's never a bad idea to be tight with two of the squad's most popular players.)
After Eric truthfully answered his buds' direct question and the word trickled out, some assistant coaches began to covertly insult him, but Ron Brown, who became a symbol of arrogant antigay intolerance last year, when he sternly lectured the Omaha City Council about its (subsequently favorable) consideration of added LGBT antidiscrimination provisions, was not among the coaches who dissed him, Leushen took pains to point out to writer Hansen.
One lineman who never let Eric Leushen pass him in the locker room without intoning "faggot" sotto voce, accosted Leushen a year later at a party, and drunkenly foisted his personal bottle of Crown Royal onto Leushen for a swig, who thanked him on account of it being his birthday, at which point his former tormenter yelled, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" at him and the room, then confided that he used to hate him but didn't any longer because he was a cool dude and then slurred a promise that he would take care of anyone who had a problem with him.The part of Hansen's account that AKSARBENT found most touching— and something Husker fans should be very proud of — was this:

He thinks of that night in 2005 when he looked at his boyfriend, whom
he would date for two years. His boyfriend looked at him. “You ready?” Together they walked toward the music. Part of what Eric cherishes are the looks on his teammates' faces as they neared the dance floor. Nebraska
football players slapped him on the back as he passed. They offered his
boyfriend high-fives. They cheered like he had just hit a 52-yarder.
They cheered like friends.

Last week Bruning spent an undetermined amount of Nebraska public fundsfiling an amicus brief in support of Utah's efforts to keep gay couples strangers to the law.
By filing a brief on behalf of Utah, Jon Bruning has shown yet again that he seems never to have met an antigay policy or law he doesn't embrace.
In November 2003, Jon Bruning said Massachusetts' Supreme Court ruling
against that state's ban on gay marriages was ridiculous. "Does that
mean you have to allow a man to marry his pet, or a man to marry his chair?" Bruning said. "I mean, at some point, it needs to stop." [Associated Press, 11/18/03]
In 2011, Jon Bruning had Nebraska State Senator Mike Gloor introduce legislation
punishing HIV+ Nebraskans who sneezed in the direction of a cop with up
to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine — despite the fact that
the CDC has repeatedly said that saliva has never been shown to transmit HIV.
In 2012, after state Senator Beau McCoy's bill to kill looming gay
rights ordinances in Omaha and Lincoln died in committee, Bruning issued
an opinion that LGBT rights ordinances were illegal anyway despite
contrary opinions by city attorneys in both Lincoln and Omaha.

Photographs published this week
by an anti-racist website show the late Andrew Breitbart, a leading
figurehead among mainstream conservatives, and his onetime protégé James
O’Keefe – whose undercover videos are credited with causing the demise
of the community organizing group ACORN – rubbing elbows with young
white nationalists at two different right-wing conferences.The pictures are noteworthy because Breitbart, who died of a heart
attack in March 2012, and O’Keefe had been adamant that they had nothing
to do with the conference attendees – and vocally attacked anyone who
suggested otherwise. ....Daryle Jenkins told Hatewatch he was inspired to publish the old
photos this week because he had finally gotten around to watching Hating Breitbart, and decided that he needed to update his older entry on O’Keefe to refute the film’s claims.

In Britain The Guardian reports that national and international disgust at the Kansas legislature's action has caused the state's GOP to have second thoughts:

Susan Wagle, the Republican president of the Senate, has raised objections to the bill, House Bill 2453, that has already cleared the House of Representatives by a 72-49 majority. In a statement, she said that despite strong support among the 32 Republican state senators for traditional marriage, “I’ve grown concerned about the practical impact of the bill… My members also don’t condone discrimination. If we cannot find ample common ground to ease legitimate concerns, I believe a majority of my caucus will not support the bill.” ...The business coalition, Kansas Chamber, praised Wagle for her intervention, which effectively puts a halt to HB 2453 in its current form. The Topeka-based organization said that many Kansas businesses were worried that the bill would have raised potentially costly legal actions over speech, discrimination and privacy concerns. “The impact on Kansas businesses, particularly those with very few employees, is very troubling,” it said.

Ryan Langenegger was bashed after three Old MarketPepperjax customers harassed two of his gay friends,one of whom was in drag, then followed them outsidewhen they abruptly left. Langenegger received facial bruising,a gash and two chipped teeth after allegedly being sucker-punched by Duncan while Langenegger was distracted byDuncan's companions.

The Omaha World-Herald reports that "a Douglas County judge" lowered bail for Gregory S. Duncan, 35, of Fenton, MO to $15,000 from $100,000 following his arrest last Friday for the October 27th, 2013 assault of Ryan Langenegger outside PepperJax Grill.
Duncan will stand trial in district court.
Duncan, in Omaha working a construction job, must now get permission to leave Nebraska and faces up to five years in prison, for a third degree felony assault (upgraded because of a hate crime charge due to the nature of harassment and insults allegedly made by Duncan and his two companions.)
Below: AKSARBENT's video of the "Drag Out Hate" rally across the street from PepperJax Grill, where Langenegger was assaulted.

Advancing the bill required 5 of 8 Judiciary Committee votes. The vote was 4-3 against.
Voting for the measure were Amanda McGill, Ernie Chambers, Brad Ashford and the bill's sponsor, Danielle Conrad.
Against were Les Seiler of Hastings, Colby Coash of Lincoln, Al Davis of Hyannis and Mark Christensen of Imperial.
Steve Lothrop, of Omaha, missed the vote.
Lobbying against the bill were the Nebraska Family Alliance and Jim Cunningham of the Nebraska Catholic conference who, according to the Omaha World-Herald, said it would be “hard to tell” if religious groups would be exempt based on the wording of the amendment.
The measure may come up again this session.

Omaha police have arrested a Missouri man working on a construction project in Omaha on suspicion of a third-degree felony assault on Ryan Langenegger outside the PepperJax Grill in Omaha's Old Market on October 27th.

Ryan Langenegger was bashed after three Old MarketPepperjax customers harassed two of his gay friends,one of whom was in drag, then followed them outsidewhen they abruptly left. Langenegger received facial bruising,a gash and two chipped teeth

Langenegger was said to have been sucker-punched by Duncan while his companions distracted Langenegger, resulting in a gash on his forehead, a bruised eye, bloody nose and two chipped teeth.
On Monday, Duncan's bond was set at $100,000. Police also are considering charges against his two companions.

Security footage and a photo lineup led to the identification of Duncan, 35.

Langenegger's friend, Joshua Foo, 29, told the Omaha World-Herald: "When I saw his picture, I knew. I knew that it was him."
WOWT's report of Duncan's apprehension is here.
Below: AKSARBENT video of the "Drag Out Hate" demonstration in downtown Omaha following the assault of Langenegger:

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Lueshen then and now: left as a NU Cornhusker kicker and right from Facebook page

Former University of Nebraska Cornhusker football player Eric Lueshen (a husker kicker from 2003 to 2006) told Firth (a village near Nebraska's capital, Lincoln) radio station KNTK "The Ticket" that he did not hide the fact that he was gay while at UNL and even took his boyfriend to a student-athlete formal when he was a freshman. Lueshen said that while Callahan was very accepting
(and even shed a tear when Lueshen shared his story), not all the assistants were. The radio interview is in two segments, Part 1 and Part 2.

“Two of my really good friends on the team, Sean Hill and Corey
McKeon, asked me at lunch one day, ‘We were just wondering if you were
gay.’ I very honestly said, ‘Yes, is that a problem?’ They were like,
‘Oh no, that’s really cool. We all thought that you were, and we just
wanted to know.’”

The Pierce, Neb., native said coaches were also aware that he was
gay, and that the Nebraska walk-on and World-Herald All-Class selection
in C-1 once took a boyfriend to the student-athlete formal. And while he said that some assistants made him feel uncomfortable,
“numerous coaches were very, very kind, and very sweet to me.” Coach
Bill Callahan was “accepting of me,” Lueshen said. “I know in the
conversations I’ve had with him how much he respected me as a person.”

At the time, Nebraska's head football coach was Bill Callahan, now a Dallas Cowboys offensive coordinator and offensive line coach.

Too see CNN's coverage of Ron Brown's trip from Lincoln to Omaha todeliver a sanctimonious sermonette to the City Council go here. To seeBrown's condescending remarks in their entirety, go here.

AKSARBENT would love to know whether Assistant Coach Ron Brown was among those who supported Lueshen the way his teammates and Head Coach Callahan did or whether Brown was among the coaches who shunned Lueshen and said "negative things." So far, Lueshen is being tactfully unspecific on that score. Pity. A lot of people would like to know if Ron Brown is really as 'tolerant' of gay players as he has claimed to be while on various Jihads against laws which would give LGBTs legal recourse against arbitrary discrimination. A gay player who has actually seen how Brown behaves in the locker room away from TV cameras could provide a much-needed reality check about whether the assistant coach's private behavior toward gay players matches his public claims about being respectful of them.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Update: Charlie Janssen has left the crowded GOP primary field of gubernatorial candidates, but uber-homophobe Nebraska AG Jon Bruning has just joined the pack, which includes Peter Ricketts, GOP scion of TD Ameritrade fortune, biggest contributor to McCoy's first state senate campaign, and brother of Laura Ricketts, gay supporter of Lambda Legal.

American
Future Fund has been around since 2007. In past years, it has been a
major player in presidential politics, spending more than $25 million in
2012 in support of Republicans. While its individual donors do
not have to be reported, the group has been linked by some to Charles
and David Koch, billionaires who have spent millions in recent elections
on television advertisements supporting Republicans and criticizing
Democrats.

Tysver noted that Open Secrets, a nonprofit group that tracks campaign
financial reports, reported that two groups with ties to the Koch
brothers donated about 92 percent of the American Future Fund's revenue
in 2012, based on tax forms filed with the IRS.
In the Nebraska
television ad, the American Future Fund hails McCoy as one of Nebraska
Gov. Dave Heineman's “closest allies” in the Nebraska Legislature.
Nick Ryan, founder of the American Future Fund and the Concordia Group,rails against a supposed conspiracy here between the Federal Elections Commission and the Internal Revenue Service against his dark money political organization, one he absurdly told Greta Von Susteren was a "grassroots" group.

Outsports had an interesting twist on this whisper campaign by NFL minions and owners' assistants: it might be a cynical ploy by one or more franchises to attempt to pick up a third-round draft choice at fifth-round prices.

Monday, February 10, 2014

...Three weeks ago, I was on the television and I said that I believed that people who actively campaigned for gay people to be treated less or treated differently are, in my gay opinion, homophobic. Now, some people — people who actively campaign for gay people to be treated less under the law, took great exception to that characterization and they threatened legal action against me and RTE. Now, RTE, in its wisdom, decided incredibly quickly to hand over a huge sum of money to make it all go away. I haven't been quite so lucky. And for the last few weeks, I have been lectured to by heterosexual people about what homophobia is and about who is allowed to identify it. Straight people have lined up: ministers, senators, barristers, journalists have lined up to tell me what homophobia is and to tell me what I am allowed to feel oppressed by. People who have never experienced homophobia in their lives, people who have never checked themselves at a pedestrian crossing, have told me that unless I am being thrown into prison or herded onto a cattle truck, then it is not homophobia, and that feels oppressive. And so now, Irish gay people, we find ourselves in this ludicrous situation where we are not only not allowed to say publicly what we feel oppressed by, we're not even allowed to think it, because the very definition — our definition — has been disallowed by our betters. And for the last few weeks, I've been denounced from the floor of [parliament] to newspaper columns to the seething morass of Internet commentary. Denounced for using hate speech because I dared to use the word homophobia and a jumped-up queer like me should know that the word homophobia is no longer available to gay people, which is a spectacular and neat Orwellian trick because now it turns out that gay people are not the victims of homophobia — homophobes are the victims of homophobia...

Band of Thebes: Imposing, six-foot, broad-shouldered uber queer Lincoln Kirstein age 38 in May
1945 is played by five-foot-five, 68 year-old Bob Balaban who in theseinterviews says he didn't study
Kirstein for his role as "Preston Savitz" and no Q or A mentions anything gay... Balaban
hints "many
of his key characteristics weren’t necessarily written into
my part of the movie." ...Why be honest
about actual gay heroics in
history when you can rely on stale signifiers and sissy stereotypes?

Stephen at Band of Thebes was not amused by George Clooney's Monuments Men:

The list of what I'd endure for Thebes does not extend to sitting
through writer-director-star George Clooney's "tepid" (USA Today),
"lifeless" (Variety), "pandering" (NYT), "self-congratulatory" (AV
Club), "failure" (EW, which gave it a C-)
of "threadbare formula and sentimental cliches" (Wash Post), The
Monuments Men, so I can't report the exact extent to which he's degayed
the real men and women who rescued art stolen by the Nazis.

It begins with [Lady] Mary and Charles [Blake] discovering that the pigs have knocked
over their watering trough. They are dying of dehydration. Something
must be done at once. Mary and Charles must save the pigs. There’s a
water pump nearby, and four galvanised buckets. Charles grabs a bucket.
Will Mary help? She’s wearing an evening gown. Of course Mary will help.
They’re her pigs.

Best dialogue snippet for homo DA fans:

Lord Grantham: “What if [EVIL gay footman] Thomas doesn’t want to go?”Lady Mary: “Why wouldn’t he? It’s an adventure. All those handsome stewards strutting down the boat deck.”Lord Grantham: “Don’t be vulgar. What do you know of such matters?”Lady Mary: “I’ve been married. I know everything.”

Emily Nohr of the Omaha World-Herald reported that Sarpy County voted 3-2 Tuesday, Jan. 29th to extend health insurance benefits to spouses of gay employees who live in Nebraska but were legally married in another state.
Although Sarpy County HR Director Karen Buche estimated that 10 or fewer employees of 450 covered county emplyees would use the benefits, board members Don Kelly and Jim Warren nevertheless voted against extending the benefits.
Warren said they were being asked to approved a contract issue with "no concept" of what the budget impact was.
Kelly piled on, saying responsible people don't make decisions without knowing the cost.
Both questioned the constitutionality of the extension, even though board member Tom Richards had already asked Deputy County Attorney Bonnie Moore if the measure was unconstitutional, to which Moore replied no, adding that the Nebraska's constitution isn't so far reaching as to invalidate a contract between Sarpy County and Blue Cross Blue Shield.
The move follows the actions last December 3rd of Nebraska's most populous county, Douglas, to extend insurance benefits to gay spouses on a 7-1 vote with Clare Duda the only board member to resist the change.

Sunday, February 9, 2014

Although the New York Times gave space to Woody Allen's refutation of Dylan
Farrow's Feb. 1 open letteron Feb. 1 claiming sexual abuse at the hands of Allen, the open letter was deemed unfit for publication on the Times' website and was instead published on New York Times blogger Nicholas Kristof’s On the Ground blog.Vanity Fair's Maureen Orth promptly responded to Allen's letter, posting "10 Undeniable Facts About The Woody Allen Sexual-Abuse Allegation" to the magazine's website and Dylan Farrow herself authored within hours a refutation of Allen's version published in The Hollywood Reporter.
On The View, Rosie O'Donnell came down squarely on the side of Mia and Dylan Farrow (below) while Babara Walters ran interference for her friend, Woody Allen on the same show.

Elizabeth and her nine brothers, Joe, Tim, Pete, Dan, Luke, Sam, John, Paul and Ben, run a very profitable farm with matriarch Lisa, who can make 30 pies in a hour. Their reality show is on GACTV Thursdays this February.

Before being quickly hustled away from reporters, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak responded to questions about hotel water shortages in Sochi by inadvertently admitting:

“We have surveillance video from the hotels that shows people turn on the shower, direct the nozzle at the wall and then leave the room for the whole day.”

Earlier in the presser, Kozak, according to the New York Daily News, politely asked LGBT visitors to Russia to try to restrain themselves from molesting Russian children:

Moments before, he gave the impression he believes gays may have pedophilic leanings, going a step further even than Russian President Vladimir Putin. “We are all grownups and any adult has the right to understand their sexual act,” Kozak said. “Please don’t touch the kids, that’s the only thing.”

Ledger was thought to have accidently OD'd on prescription meds while fighting off the flu. Hoffmann reportedly was found in his apartment bathroom with a heroin syringe still stuck in his arm.

Here's the real Capote, on Dick Cavett in 1971, responding to a tongue-in-cheek engagement proposal by Groucho Marx, hedged by his disclaimer (at about the 8:25 mark) that he couldn't give Capote "what you're entitled to," to which Capote responded: "The best years of your life!"

The New York Timesexplained the apparent disparity between the NFL's business practices and the law of New Jersey, site of the 2014 Super Bowl:

Section 56:8-35.1 of the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act reads:

“It
shall be an unlawful practice for a person, who has access to tickets
to an event prior to the tickets’ release for sale to the general
public, to withhold those tickets from sale to the general public in an
amount exceeding 5 percent of all available seating for the event.”

While
certainly a mouthful, to Mr. Finkelman and Mr. Nagel this passage from
the law explicitly forbids the N.F.L.’s practice of providing only 1
percent of Super Bowl tickets for sale to the public. In fact, it would
seem to dictate that 95 percent of the seats must be sold that way.

...Brian McCarthy, an N.F.L. spokesman,
...in an email: “We can never fulfill all the requests for tickets.
The N.F.L.’s Super Bowl ticket distribution process has been in
existence for years and is well documented. We are confident it is in
compliance with all applicable laws.”

When
Mr. McCarthy was pressed to explain how that process complied with the
New Jersey law, he wrote a second email, saying, “We strongly disagree
with the plaintiff’s interpretation of the NJ Consumer Fraud Act and his
claims.” After one more request to clarify the nature of the league’s
disagreement, he wrote, “We will be formally responding to the complaint
next month. We do not have any further comment.”

Maynard (Bob "Gilligan's Island" Denver) slyly flashes a nipple to the CBS eye while trying to talk his best buddy Dobie Gillis (Dwayne Hick­man) into taking off all his clothes. Whoever said 1950s television was a vast waste­land obviously didn't know where to look.